


love has teeth

by ygrittebardots



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Mother-Son Relationship, POV Minor Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:16:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24194176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ygrittebardots/pseuds/ygrittebardots
Summary: In which Hope Lupin accidentally becomes the pack mum.
Relationships: Hope Lupin & Remus Lupin, Hope Lupin/Lyall Lupin
Comments: 3
Kudos: 29





	love has teeth

**Author's Note:**

> A short drabble I wrote years ago on Tumblr and never got around to posting here.
> 
> _Love isn’t soft, like those poets say. Love has teeth which bite and the wounds never close._  
>  ― Stephen King, The Body

Hope Lupin loves her husband, she really does, but she’s a child of the war and the political passions that came with it and on the whole she really hasn’t got the time nor patience for the astounding ignorance and stupidity of Wizarding Britain.

“Sod the lot of ‘em, darling,” she says after a series of nastily pointed questions leaves the family with the prospect of moving once more, shocking her young son into a rare smile.

So they end up by the sea and - miracle of miracles - Remus goes to school, and during the holidays Hope does everything in her power to make their remote home a haven in an unforgiving world. At first this means the little things - laughter and music and the odd chocolate biscuit before he asks. Then he grows tall and lanky, and winter nights find them by the fire discussing Tolstoy and Shakespeare over tea and fags long after Lyall has gone to sleep.

Remus starts to bring friends home.

Hope has met their parents. The Potters dote on their son and mean well, but are often gone to the opera or some social function. The Pettigrews are nervous and just-so. The Blacks have never deigned to speak to her, but she’s given to understand they expect their eldest-born to be consorting with rather different friends. They all love their sons, she does see this, but Hope comes to love these boys as her own and can’t object as they begin to spend more and more time in her home.

Hope teaches James to cook, and gives Peter advice on girls, and becomes single-handedly responsible for Sirius’ obsession with motorbikes after letting him ride on the back of hers. She introduces the lot of them to jazz and skiffle and tells them stories of growing up with Communist parents in post-war London.

“You do realize you’ve become the pack mum, don’t you?” Lyall comments one morning during Easter hols after the four of them have scrambled out of the kitchen down to the beach. Hope gives him a kiss and continues to get ready for work.

She’s lucky to still be a mother at all - lucky that Greyback didn’t kill her son, lucky the transformations haven’t sent him to an early grave, lucky no one’s taken him away. She has to love Remus a thousand times more than any other child because the world is a cruel place and no one else is going to. But here are three boys, three products of an intolerant society, who know him for what he is and accept and love him anyway. How could she do anything but love them, too?


End file.
